How did you
shed the rust
of your unhelpful relatives?
How did you free
the remedy of your inherent habits?
Can you take it for what it is
if you bring
it out of me?

Nature has Her ways, souls
rubbing souls
for Earthly calibration
I am the catalyst
You are the Scientist’s prescription
for a healthy heart
Good health
is sensitive to unhealthy servants
and no one knows it more than you
how even the undeserving have a purpose
“There’s nothing more necessary
than the unnecessary”
There’s nothing more divine than losing your religion

As I sit
with you
under the toenail of a
closed cathedral
I wonder, what if
out of the 144,000
you were the first

When the question hitches a ride with
the westbound wind
you catch on too with your photo-maker
causing a traffic jam raising the blade
of your eyebrow all to say without sound:
I’d be the first to refuse

My neck, itchy
patterned with crusty, dry patches
so I scratch at it
until the patches become smooth
or numb
or

Until I can’t say your name out loud anymore
without burning

Somewhere between these moments I left-side my obsession
I shoulder the lights out of these constant
thoughts provoking postponed personal development
Or maybe my obsession tackled me, pinned me down
and sucked the light out from my eyes
either way
I was married to a split moment and I noticed:
An addiction
is just an itch that feels like
will never go away
It’s constantly distracting
It’s unimportantly urgent
and it’s so reasonable to scratch, at first…

I scratch
scratch, scratch
scratch until I
carve myself into halves (halves, for Christ’s sake)
until those halves become halves
and those halves are halved
and all that I have
isn’t good enough for you?

I can be honest if you want me to
but I’d much rather lie…
beside you
I’m sorry, I’m evil like that.

Last week, my first weakened thoughts
fell down like ash to a filter-less lit stash of some hash
around the compassionate desire to have a companion;
I thought I needed something to hold on to
something to let me command it
I wanted control

And now, I find power in pleasing you
Like teasing a pet with food, I rattle my hand in the air
and watch as you pant with joy and jump from your seat for me

I am afraid to get out of bed most days
because I don’t think I can live up to who I am
…and I blame the linen

for not letting me go

yet I am rejected
I am incongruent,
mispronounced in frequent conversations
that I’m convinced people are having about me
but just because I can hear their voices between my eyes
it doesn’t mean that I can see them

I couldn’t recognize myself in a fitting room
so who’s to say I know what belongs?

the lips of my ears mouth the words, “Get up,
you’ve been through much worse” as the grind of my forehead against the wall
barks back, “I know, but this still hurts”